Bible software companies should consider UltraViolet model

I think that the major Bible software companies should work together with the Christian Publishers to form a consortium similar to what the movie industry has done with UltraViolet (www.uvvu.com).

By doing so, users could pay for the digital content once, yet they would be able to access it on whichever Bible software platforms they choose (Logos, Accordance, OliveTree, WORDSearch, etc.).

For those unfamiliar with UltraViolet, it allows users to store their licenses to digital movies in one central place which can be accessed by a number of different service providers. As an example, if I purchase a Paramount digital movie through Walmart's service (www.vudu.com), not only can I access that movie through Walmart's service, but also the services of other competing providers, such as Target (www.targetticket.com) or Best Buy (www.cinemanow.com). As long as I give a service access to my UltraViolet account by linking to it, it will see which digital content I own licenses to.

The one major difference I see is that, unlike UltraViolet, users would pay a fee to the Bible software companies to access content on their platforms. For example, if I buy a $100 resource on Logos, $75 of that might go to the publisher for a digital license and $25 would go to Logos to access that resource on their platform. If I later wanted to use that same resource on Accordance, I would pay only their platform fee ($25, or whatever they charge) and not the fee to the publisher. There might also be some lower end Bible software platforms that would let me access my content for much less - maybe $5 or so, but without all the benefits that a platform like Logos provides, such as tags, linking, search capabilities, etc. And to make this still attractive for publishers, perhaps they would collect a small royalty from the platform fee (perhaps 10% of it?).

Admittedly, this might look mostly like a good deal for users and not a great deal for the publishers or Bible software companies. However, with the introduction of UltraViolet, I think this is the direction that licensing of digital content may be going (thus what users will eventually expect). Furthermore, I think it might spur more sales if users didn't have to worry about their libraries being captive to one particular Bible software company (what happens if I buy a book from a software company that goes out of business?). Finally, I think that if the Bible software companies can work together on this, it may help them better compete with the digital book platforms offered by huge competitors, such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Barnes & Noble.

I believe this was talked about somewhat a year ago in this thread:
http://community.logos.com/forums/t/64118.aspx

Here is the post where I outlined something similar to what I just wrote:
http://community.logos.com/forums/thread/451811.aspx

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. I'm sure there are a ton of issues that would need to be worked out (I think UltraViolet is still working out issues), and it might take a long time and a lot of work to get all the different players on board. However, I would love to see this happen. And as I said earlier, I think this is the direction things could be headed for digital books, and thus I would love to see the Bible software companies get ahead of the curve on it before the major eBook services do.

Thanks.

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Comments

BillS

Users want standards, for just the reasons you cite. (So do I.)

But differentiation (competitive edge differences) sell products. (Been there. Done that.)

I'd love to see it happen.

Perhaps in eternity........

George Somsel

I don't think that will work unless bible software companies agree on tagging, etc. It is not simply a matter of accessing text.

NB.Mick

Users want standards, for just the reasons you cite. (So do I.)

But differentiation (competitive edge differences) sell products. (Been there. Done that.)

I'd love to see it happen.

Perhaps in eternity........

Actually it already has happened in the last century (STEP format), but got lost in what some might call publisher's greed.

Sogol

To clarify, it would be up to each Bible software company to take the basic text of a book and enhance it however they want. The tagging and software capabilities they provide are what would entice users to pay to use licenses on their platform. The better the platform, the more attractive it would be to users.

It's even possible that there would be a very low cost platform (maybe free to use with any licenses purchased from publishers) that was run by users (sort of like Wikipedia) that provided little more than a browser based version of the text and some tagging done by volunteers. At a later point, a user may decide that they want more advanced features and then pay to use their licenses on a platform like Logos.

And not all Bible software platforms will offer all the books that a user may have licenses to. For example, though I may have licenses to books that I use on Logos, those same books may not be available on Accordance or OliveTree. Therefore, I would most likely stick to Logos because that is the only place I can use those licenses.

BillS

Actually it already has happened in the last century (STEP format), but got lost in what some might call publisher's greed.

Hi NB,

I was thinking of STEP as I wrote. While publisher greed would be an uncharitable way to describe its demise, the truth is that users didn't buy enough of the products who incorporated it to make it a competitively sustainable way to go. Don't mis-hear me. I'd LOVE to have some form of STEP available (not STEP itself, which was too limited in its capability, but the agreement for any standard--perhaps even Logos' internal format as the standard).

The problem is that despite all words of affirmation for standards the marketplace (a euphemism for all of US) doesn't support standards. It supports the "best." That's the competitive advantage that providers have to sell. It isn't just greed... it's us. As Pogo used to say, "We have met the enemy. And he is us."

Before entering ministry I spent 25 years in IS making different systems talk to each other. I understand standards & the need for them. But until the marketplace (us) require AND SUPPORT standards, they just aren't going to happen.

I'm not going to respond again in this thread on this topic, as I believe it's off topic & pointless to debate--despite the fact that I agree with those who ask for them. I'm just not optimistic........

Sogol

I should also ask: if nearly all the major movie/media companies, which are notorious for massive egos, could work together with the some of the largest retailers in the country (Walmart, Target, Best Buy - all competitors, mind you) to make UltraViolet happen, how could the much smaller Bible software industry (largely filled with Christians) not be able to cooperate to do something similar?

N/A

Sogol, Your suggestion would mean more software development efforts - something which is not always easy because of many reasons.

Most publishers would not agree on content being available in a web-browser.

How would limiting which books each company offers, work?

What agreement could be reached about who would be responsible for releasing new titles?

Would community pricing and pre-publication pricing be gone, and if not who would be in charge of those systems?

At times, negotiations between ALL Bible study software companies involved and publishers about the price for a title, would consume A LOT of human resources. So some titles would be more expensive or unprofitable with this kind of co-operation instead of each company having their proprietary format.

Sogol

Bill & George,

I don't want to drag you into another tagging/standards discussion, but maybe I don't understand it well enough to know how it pertains to my suggestion.

I am merely suggesting that a user can use a single digital license on any participating Bible software platform. However, this does not mean that there would be any communication between platforms. I still would not able to follow a link in a book I own on the Logos platform to another book I own in the Accordance platform. It would certainly be great if you could do that at some point, but that is not what I'm suggesting. This is really only about freeing my digital licenses from being captive to one particular Bible software platform. The only thing that moves between platforms is the content license - nothing else.

Maybe working together on something like this (ie. the ability to use a single digital license on multiple platforms) would be a needed intermediate step before the Bible software companies would work together on something like standards.

Matthew C Jones

I am 100% against Logos participating in this type of arrangement. I have no desire to read my books in Accordance or WordSearch. A few years back I decided to make the Logos format my standard . I prefer Logos not waste their time.

DMB

I think Sogol's idea is absolutely great. We're talking 'licenses'; not the literal resource files.

One big reason I hold and buy for Libronix is 'licenses'. Logos Inc gets caught in a car wreck? Unfortunate, but my licenses aren't a function of whatever contracts Logos has in the aftermath.

Sogol's idea solves much of the risk in 'digital' books (as long as other resellers offer the content).

George Somsel

Bill & George,

I don't want to drag you into another tagging/standards discussion, but maybe I don't understand it well enough to know how it pertains to my suggestion.

I am merely suggesting that a user can use a single digital license on any participating Bible software platform. However, this does not mean that there would be any communication between platforms. I still would not able to follow a link in a book I own on the Logos platform to another book I own in the Accordance platform. It would certainly be great if you could do that at some point, but that is not what I'm suggesting. This is really only about freeing my digital licenses from being captive to one particular Bible software platform. The only thing that moves between platforms is the content license - nothing else.

Maybe working together on something like this (ie. the ability to use a single digital license on multiple platforms) would be a needed intermediate step before the Bible software companies would work together on something like standards.

If the user is to be able to access a resource on whatever platform he desires to use, that means that there must be a commonality between them. The only commonality they can share is the text since tagging is proprietary. It simply would not work.

Sogol

NÖ

[quote]

Sogol, Your suggestion would mean more software development efforts - something which is not always easy because of many reasons.

Most publishers would not agree on content being available in a web-browser.

It doesn't have to be available in a web-browser, though that's a possibility. And doesn't Logos already offer web access through Biblia.com?

[quote]

How would limiting which books each company offers, work?

It's up to each Bible software company to decide which books to offer. If I own a license to a book that is available on Logos but not on Accordance, then I can't access the book on Accordance. The attractiveness of a software platform will certainly be affected by the selection they offer, just as it is now.

[quote]

What agreement could be reached about who would be responsible for releasing new titles?

I'm not sure I understand this. The publishers decide when a digital license is available and after that the Bible software companies decide when to release them on their platform. If publishers want to do exclusive deals with particular Bible software companies then that would detract from the attractiveness of this model.

[quote]

Would community pricing and pre-publication pricing be gone, and if not who would be in charge of those systems?

I don't think pre-pub would be affected at all. With community pricing, if a title is still under copyright then it works fine with this system. If a Bible software company produces their own version of a work no longer under copyright then there isn't really a publisher license that a user could own, unless of course the Bible software company acts as a publisher and makes their content available to Bible software companies (assuming it is legal for them to charge for that).

[quote]

The publishers would set a standard price for the digital license. The Bible software companies could mark it up if they want to try and sell it that way, but that doesn't make a lot of sense because they are really making their money on the platform fees they charge.

As for the resources required, every industry has to invest in new innovations if they want to stay relevant. I'm sure it took a ton of time and money for all the media and retail companies to get UltraViolet up and running, but they knew that was the direction digital content was going.

And companies can still have their own proprietary formats for the books. The only thing that is moving between platforms is the intangible license, not and files.

Sogol

I am 100% against Logos participating in this type of arrangement. I have no desire to read my books in Accordance or WordSearch. A few years back I decided to make the Logos format my standard . I prefer Logos not waste their time.

You would certainly have the option to just use one platform, such as Logos. If you did, you would see no change whatsoever in how you use Logos.

Furthermore, if Logos truly is the best platform (which I think it is), it would make it much easier for users of Accordance or WORDSearch to migrate to Logos once they see the light.

Sogol

I think Sogol's idea is absolutely great. We're talking 'licenses'; not the literal resource files.

One big reason I hold and buy for Libronix is 'licenses'. Logos Inc gets caught in a car wreck? Unfortunate, but my licenses aren't a function of whatever contracts Logos has in the aftermath.

Sogol's idea solves much of the risk in 'digital' books (as long as other resellers offer the content).

I think your points are exactly right, Denise.

Licenses to content should not be captive to one particular platform. Such an arrangement will make less and less sense as time goes on, and I think that's what the movie/media industry realized with UltraViolet.

And you are right - there is no integration of resource files required. The only thing that moves across platforms are intangible digital licenses.

Sogol

Bill & George,

I don't want to drag you into another tagging/standards discussion, but maybe I don't understand it well enough to know how it pertains to my suggestion.

I am merely suggesting that a user can use a single digital license on any participating Bible software platform. However, this does not mean that there would be any communication between platforms. I still would not able to follow a link in a book I own on the Logos platform to another book I own in the Accordance platform. It would certainly be great if you could do that at some point, but that is not what I'm suggesting. This is really only about freeing my digital licenses from being captive to one particular Bible software platform. The only thing that moves between platforms is the content license - nothing else.

Maybe working together on something like this (ie. the ability to use a single digital license on multiple platforms) would be a needed intermediate step before the Bible software companies would work together on something like standards.

If the user is to be able to access a resource on whatever platform he desires to use, that means that there must be a commonality between them. The only commonality they can share is the text since tagging is proprietary. It simply would not work.

I think you might be thinking of something different than what I am saying.

I am not saying that you pay once and then can access your resources on any platform. I am saying that the publisher gets paid only once for the license to the content. Then you would pay a Bible software company to use that resource on their platform. So when you pay $100 for a resource on Logos, you would now be getting two licenses instead of one - maybe $75 of that $100 goes to the publisher for the content license and $25 goes to Logos for the license to use it on their platform. (as I said earlier, it's possible that the publishers would get a small slice of the platform license to keep them enticed, but that's something that would need to be worked out).

If for some reason you wanted to also use that content license on Accordance as well, you would pay for a license to their platform (another $25, or whatever they charge for it). Therefore, in most situations it doesn't make a lot of sense to have resources on multiple platforms. You would probably only use one platform, unless there was a particular resource that wasn't available on your preferred platform but was available on another platform. If you did buy a license to use a resource on another platform and then it became available on your preferred platform, you would only pay for the platform license since you already own the content license.

So there really is no technical integration between platforms, other than each Bible software company linking to the consortium which stores all of a user's content licenses.

George Somsel

The publishers would set a standard price for the digital license. The Bible software companies could mark it up if they want to try and sell it that way, but that doesn't make a lot of sense because they are really making their money on the platform fees they charge.

Earth to Sogol, if you haven't noticed, Logos doesn't charge for the platform, only for the (tagged) resources. Your example of WalMart, Target and Best Buy doesn't hold up because each is selling the exact same product (no tagging).

Mike Childs

It will only happen if enough customers demand it, and if Bible software companies and publishers decide that it is in their financial interest to do it.

When people stopped buying MP3 music that they could not play on multiple devices, the companies changed their policies. There is nothing like feeling the heat to help someone see the light. And light seldom appears without a little heat. I just don't see enough light or heat to change things here.

toughski

This proposal is in essence a change to Logos philosophy. They always said "our software is free, you only pay for resources". I have never understood why they are so adamant about NOT charging for software. Customers still pay, whether you call them "resource surcharge" (over Amazon's price for example) or "additional software capability" (tagging, datasets, indexing and such).

I guess, once consumers figure out that if they own 13,000 titles and each has been surcharged even 50 cents - it makes for a very expensive bible Software application. However, once you figure out their support and continual enhancement of each resource, it might not sound too bad.

Under UV-type paradigm bible software companies charge BOTH for basic resource license (basically plain text - what the original content creator came up with) and for their proprietary tagging, formatting, etc. but separately.

How would Logos make money? the same as always! But allowing a plain text (as created by authors) resource to be displayed within Logos platform would bring in a lot of additional customers:

imagine having any Kindle resource on Logos. Just as text. no thrills. What do you think most people would do? Once they taste the power of Logos, they would upgrade.

it is a win-win-win for rights holders, publishers and consumers (just follow the music industry and video industry), but is not without some legal and technical challenges. The longer I live the better I understand that businesses are very slow to change unless their (business) life depends on it.

Sogol

It will only happen if enough customers demand it, and if Bible software companies and publishers decide that it is in their financial interest to do it.

When people stopped buying MP3 music that they could not play on multiple devices, the companies changed their policies. There is nothing like feeling the heat to help someone see the light. And light seldom appears without a little heat. I just don't see enough light or heat to change things here.

I completely agree with you, Michael. I certainly don't see throngs of customers marching on Bellingham anytime soon demanding this model.

However, I'm betting that, though it make take a while, the eBook world is eventually headed in this direction. Given all that would go into getting the details worked out, it wouldn't hurt to start thinking about this now. Logos has a long history of being visionary and forward thinking, and I would certainly hope that they continue to stay ahead of the curve.

I also think that it would be awesome if the Bible software companies took the lead on making an eBook model like this come to pass. There is a lot of value and savings that could be provided to the body of Christ with something like this, and it would be a cool witness to the world to see Christians working together to be at the forefront of media and technology.

Sogol

This proposal is in essence a change to Logos philosophy. They always said "our software is free, you only pay for resources". I have never understood why they are so adamant about NOT charging for software. Customers still pay, whether you call them "resource surcharge" (over Amazon's price for example) or "additional software capability" (tagging, datasets, indexing and such).

I guess, once consumers figure out that if they own 13,000 titles and each has been surcharged even 50 cents - it makes for a very expensive bible Software application. However, once you figure out their support and continual enhancement of each resource, it might not sound too bad.

Under UV-type paradigm bible software companies charge BOTH for basic resource license (basically plain text - what the original content creator came up with) and for their proprietary tagging, formatting, etc. but separately.

How would Logos make money? the same as always! But allowing a plain text (as created by authors) resource to be displayed within Logos platform would bring in a lot of additional customers:

imagine having any Kindle resource on Logos. Just as text. no thrills. What do you think most people would do? Once they taste the power of Logos, they would upgrade.

it is a win-win-win for rights holders, publishers and consumers (just follow the music industry and video industry), but is not without some legal and technical challenges. The longer I live the better I understand that businesses are very slow to change unless their (business) life depends on it.

You bring up all kinds of good points, toughski.

I had not thought about it, but you mention a great idea. It would be very cool if a company like Logos would let users who own a content license only (with no platform license) view their content on the Logos platform for free but only get access to the text - none of the additional features like tagging. An example would be someone who owns a Kindle book but wants to consider using that content license on Logos. Thus Logos would just function as an eReader for such users and nothing more. Once they got comfortable with Logos, they might upgrade by purchasing the platform license. This is consistent with the ever prevalent "freemium" model nowadays where you get only the most basic features for free but pay for anything more.

You also bring to mind another important consideration I had not mentioned. In the ideal world, all the various eBook platforms and publishers would form one big consortium to make this happen. Thus the Bible software companies would be working together with Amazon Kindle, Google Play, B&N Nook, Apple, etc. Likewise, it wouldn't just be the Christian publishers, but all the major publishing houses. Since we don't know where these guys are at with an idea like this (or at least I don't), and the Bible software companies probably aren't really on their radar right now, I was suggesting that the Bible software companies could just start to work together on something like this now.

Of course, there is one big risk I worry about: the Bible software companies form a consortium, and then later on all the big guys form a much bigger consortium that operates very differently than the Bible software consortium. The result is that the Bible software consortium has to do one of the following:

1) Try to figure out a way to link the two consortiums (something the big guys might not be interested in, and even if they were the legal/financial/technical integration could be a big headache)

2) Operate as an independent consortium (the downside here is that the books you buy on Kindle would not work on Logos and vice versa)

3) Dissolve the Bible software consortium and have all the companies independently join the bigger consortium (in which case it may have just been better for the Bible software companies to have waited for the bigger consortium to form)

Sogol

I encountered a real example tonight of why I would like to see this model in place.

For whatever reason, Logos has not yet been able to get the New Interpreters series into production (both the commentary and dictionary sets).

https://www.logos.com/product/8803/new-interpreters-bible

https://www.logos.com/product/8801/new-interpreters-dictionary-of-the-bible

I would very, very much like to have these now, and I know of at least one Bible software company that has the dictionary available right now. However, I strongly hesitate to buy it from the other software company because I only want to own resources in Logos.

If the model we were discussing were in place, I could buy the dictionary from the other company right now and use it on their platform immediately. Later on, if Logos made it available, I could just purchase the platform license from Logos instead of having to pay full price for the whole thing again in order to use in on Logos.

Rosie Perera

I encountered a real example tonight of why I would like to see this model in place.

For whatever reason, Logos has not yet been able to get the New Interpreters series into production (both the commentary and dictionary sets).

https://www.logos.com/product/8803/new-interpreters-bible

https://www.logos.com/product/8801/new-interpreters-dictionary-of-the-bible

I would very, very much like to have these now, and I know of at least one Bible software company that has the dictionary available right now. However, I strongly hesitate to buy it from the other software company because I only want to own resources in Logos.

If the model we were discussing were in place, I could buy the dictionary from the other company right now and use it on their platform immediately. Later on, if Logos made it available, I could just purchase the platform license from Logos instead of having to pay full price for the whole thing again in order to use in on Logos.

Consider the economics of this, if Logos were to agree to it.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Logos were usually late to the game in getting resources out into their format (not too far from the truth). Then Logos would only be getting the platform license cost from all their impatient users, not the full cost of the resources (which would go to their competitors who were first off the starting block). It wouldn't be very good for their bottom line.

Such a scenario might cause them to rethink their quality assurance and rush things to market faster so they could beat their competitors and get top dollar for all their work. But it would mean shoddier products. Is that what we want? Otherwise, I don't see how they could make business sense of offering the UltraViolet model. It would just cut into their revenues.

Ideally what we want is high quality products, first to market, and for a lower price than the competitors. Generally we can expect to have at most two out of the three. I'd love to be an idealist, but I tend to lean more towards realism.

Sogol

Per our original discussion about the UltraViolet "Digital Locker" model, here an FYI for anyone who likes streaming movies and wants to see how neat the UltraViolet model is.....

VUDU (www.vudu.com), which is Walmart's UltraViolet streaming service, has a special 50% off deal through January 31 that credits your UltraViolet account with movies you already own on DVD.

If you use their "Disc to Digital" feature for 10 or more DVDs you own, you pay the following per DVD:

$1.00 to get the standard definition (SD) version in UltraViolet

$2.50 to get the high definition (HDX) version in UltraViolet

$1.00 to convert any Blu-ray DVD to the HDX version in UltraViolet

Their normal rates (after January 31) are twice that.

In addition, they give you a $2 credit towards your first conversion when you sign up (plus 5 free HDX movies).

All you have to do is download the software from VUDU and put the DVDs in your drive. It will then tell you whether each title is available or not. You can also take DVDs into Walmart and have them processed there (helpful if you don't have a DVD drive on your laptop, or if you want to process Blu-ray discs but don't have a Blu-ray drive on your computer).

I ran this for a bunch of my DVDs tonight. Of the 73 DVDs I tried out, 47 were successful, 22 were not presently available in UltraViolet, and the system was unable to identify 4 of my DVDs. That's a 64% success rate, but most of the DVDs that didn't work were either non-mainstream movies or Disney films (I believe that Disney is the only major studio to hold out on UltraViolet participation).

I suppose it's possible that they could extend the deal beyond January 31, but that's the current end date listed.

If you just want to try UltraViolet out and not pay anything, you can sign up for a VUDU account and get 5 free HDX movies. Then you could use the free $2 credit to do a couple DVD conversions to SD format. Finally, you could go sign up at the other UltraViolet participants (TargetTicket, CinemaNow, Flixster, etc.), as they usually give you some free movies for signing up as well. All of the movies you get from these will be added to your UltraViolet account (which you must create as well) once you link your accounts. I got about 30 free movies this way.

Once again, I still think the UltraViolet model for "Digital Lockers" is a great system. It would be awesome if this also came to music and eBooks.... and Bible software content too, of course!

Sogol

I forgot to mention one other cool feature of UltraViolet....

You can actually add 5 additional users per account (and you set the permissions for each). So it is great for sharing the content.

I don't see such a feature applying to our discussion here of Bible software, but it's pretty neat to have for movies.

JT (alabama24)

I ran this for a bunch of my DVDs tonight. Of the 73 DVDs I tried out, 47 were successful, 22 were not presently available in UltraViolet, and the system was unable to identify 4 of my DVDs. That's a 64% success rate, but most of the DVDs that didn't work were either non-mainstream movies or Disney films (I believe that Disney is the only major studio to hold out on UltraViolet participation).

I am very busy right now and probably won't have the time before the 31st... [:s]

Once again, I still think the UltraViolet model for "Digital Lockers" is a great system. It would be awesome if this also came to music and eBooks.... and Bible software content too, of course!

For clarification: what do you mean by the UV 'model'? How would it apply to Logos?

To be completely honest, I am a bit confused by UV. I could care less about any movies in UV format. I want them in my iTunes library... Otherwise the movies are worthless to me. UV has no connection to adding movies to iTunes, does it? If not, then how does this model apply to Logos?
To be clear again: however UV works, it has the blessing of the copyright holders. They aren't illegally selling discounted movies, nor are they giving them away from the "goodness of their hearts." They are trying to make money and the believe they have a model to do so.
one last thing: UV might be an organization tied to the movie houses (I have no idea if they are). If this is true, it further distances this "model" from anything related to Logos. [Hulu is a similar company, which is owned by some networks... I can't watch 'Hulu' shows on netflix, which has a much nicer interface on my device]

FWIW- I am very glad for "iTunes Match." I pay $25 a year for cloud access to music I did not purchase from iTunes. All things equal, I buy from iTunes. When Amazon does a loss leader on an album for $2-5, I buy it there and access it in iTunes. It's great. [:)] I would love to buy a $1.99 kindle deal and get the Logos copy free (Or at a significant discount,), but I don't see anything to point me to this ever being a real possibility.

Sogol

I ran this for a bunch of my DVDs tonight. Of the 73 DVDs I tried out, 47 were successful, 22 were not presently available in UltraViolet, and the system was unable to identify 4 of my DVDs. That's a 64% success rate, but most of the DVDs that didn't work were either non-mainstream movies or Disney films (I believe that Disney is the only major studio to hold out on UltraViolet participation).

I am very busy right now and probably won't have the time before the 31st...

Once again, I still think the UltraViolet model for "Digital Lockers" is a great system. It would be awesome if this also came to music and eBooks.... and Bible software content too, of course!

For clarification: what do you mean by the UV 'model'? How would it apply to Logos?

To be completely honest, I am a bit confused by UV. I could care less about any movies in UV format. I want them in my iTunes library... Otherwise the movies are worthless to me. UV has no connection to adding movies to iTunes, does it? If not, then how does this model apply to Logos?

To be clear again: however UV works, it has the blessing of the copyright holders. They aren't illegally selling discounted movies, nor are they giving them away from the "goodness of their hearts." They are trying to make money and the believe they have a model to do so.

one last thing: UV might be an organization tied to the movie houses (I have no idea if they are). If this is true, it further distances this "model" from anything related to Logos. [Hulu is a similar company, which is owned by some networks... I can't watch 'Hulu' shows on netflix, which has a much nicer interface on my device]

FWIW- I am very glad for "iTunes Match." I pay $25 a year for cloud access to music I did not purchase from iTunes. All things equal, I buy from iTunes. When Amazon does a loss leader on an album for $2-5, I buy it there and access it in iTunes. It's great. I would love to buy a $1.99 kindle deal and get the Logos copy free (Or at a significant discount,), but I don't see anything to point me to this ever being a real possibility.

In a nutshell, what I am referring to as "the UV Model" is a just a more advanced way to manage the digital media assets a consumer owns, whether they be books, movies, music or video games.

What this model does it to essentially "unbundle" the digital rights to content from the digital rights of delivery platforms.

Why is this necessary? Primarily because the digital content we own is tied to individual content delivery platforms, yet the content delivery platforms we prefer have changed and continue to change so quickly. Thus if consumers want to maintain the value of the digital content they own, they are forced to make a very long-term bet on which content delivery platforms will be the best in the long-run. However, none of us really have much certainty as to which will be the best in the long-run, and for all we know, the best ones in the long-run may not even exist yet!

For example, let's look at digital books. At the moment, there are a handful of mainstream ways we can buy digital books. There's Amazon (Kindle), Apple (iBooks), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Google (Play), and maybe Adobe Digital Editions from the publisher (I'm sure there's others too, but let's go with these). If I want to keep the long-term value of my digital book library intact, then before buying any digital books I have to make a long-term bet on which platform(s) will succeed and thrive over time, because the digital books I buy are tied to whichever of the platforms I buy them on.

At the moment, Amazon looks like a good long-term bet, but there's no guarantee they'll stay in the lead. Google and Apple are strong companies overall, but both are a bit weaker in this specific space (and Google has a history of bailing out of businesses that aren't thriving). Barnes and Noble's Nook looks somewhat weak, but they could end up getting acquired by a larger player (I believe Microsoft already has an investment in them). And though Adobe Digital Editions doesn't have too much, some of the more academic publishers I like only make their content available through this platform. And who know's what new players will get into the space in the future to give the legacy players a run for their money?

What I'm saying is that if book publishers could cooperate on this, just as the movie studios have done with UltraViolet, consumers wouldn't have to bet on which is the best delivery platform in the long-run. They would only have to purchase the license to the digital content once, but could then access it on whichever delivery platforms they wanted in the future (probably for an additional fee, but that fee would be much less than the cost of buying a whole new license for full price).

Would this work for the Bible software space? It's hard to say if you could get everyone to work together on it, but I think it makes a ton of sense and would provide a huge benefit for end-users. And if the secular media companies, which are both much bigger and notoriously vicious with each other, could cooperate together on UltraViolet, I don't know why it should be unthinkable for the Bible software companies and Christian publishers to cooperate on doing something similar. And though most of the decision lies with the publishers to make something like this work, Logos would be an extremely important player in it all since they are the leading delivery platform for digital Bible content.

Sogol

And one more thing.......

Why would the publishers and content delivery platforms want to go along with something like this? Doesn't it seem like most of the benefit accrues to the end-users?

In the short-run, this may look like the case. However, the current system is less competitive and provides less consumers to end-users.

If history is any guide, technologies that increase the freedom of users and promote competition win in the long-run.

Matthew C Jones

Would this work for the Bible software space? It's hard to say if you could get everyone to work together on it, but I think it makes a ton of sense and would provide a huge benefit for end-users. And if the secular media companies, which are both much bigger and notoriously vicious with each other, could cooperate together on UltraViolet, I don't know why it should be unthinkable for the Bible software companies and Christian publishers to cooperate on doing something similar. And though most of the decision lies with the publishers to make something like this work, Logos would be an extremely important player in it all since they are the leading delivery platform for digital Bible content.

Here is why it is never gonna happen:

Under the present system the publishers make more money
Under the present system the platforms make more money
Presently there are not enough users migrating to new platforms
The Logos users are generally very happy with their choice of platform
The non-Logos users are not willing to pay for the Logos platform
Finally, it is all about the money.